Group Leadership Project

Our group's specialty was flipping the classroom. We used the resource WatchKnowLearn.org as the resource that we would create our professional development tutorial. To create our tutorial, we used the resource Adobe Presenter. We used this resource because it allowed us to easily add voice narration over a pre-existing powerpoint. It is very user-friendly for the creator and those who are watching the presentation.

Through working on this project I learned about two new technology tools. I learned about Adobe Presenter as well as Popplet. Popplet is a great mind-mapping tool and it is something that I would use with students. It allows users to easily organize and color coordinate different popples as well as connect the popples. It reminds me of Prezi, except you are able to see everything at once. We used Google Docs to create our script and this was an easy tool to use to collaborate and share the script.

Overall, the project was great for learning and I think that our presentation came together really well. My group worked so well today, it was such a pleasure to work with Heidi and Jamin. We were able to meet all of our deadlines, meet online and communicate effectively. In regards to the presentation  Heidi did all of the editing and she was the leader in organizing everything and giving our individual deadlines. I created the powerpoint presentation and Jamin put it into Adobe Presenter and did the voice narration as well as the final production. Working with Heidi and Jamin gave me the feel of the Personal Learning Community that I am missing by not having a teaching job. We were so supportive and helpful to each other, it was fantastic!

During the project, I learned more about working with a group. This was the first time that I worked with classmates, that I had never met face-to-face in real life, online and that were not in my content area. We were all at different points in our teaching careers, but we were all able to make it work. I learned that it was very important to have an overall idea of what we would like to accomplish as a group in a reasonable time frame. It really helped by having a group timeline so that we could give each other enough time to complete our parts. I also learned that it is important to keep in close contact via text, email and google hangout. We texted Heidi and Jamin almost daily and I would talk to Jamin on the phone a lot. I have never met my group members but I had to trust them and support them to effectively and collaboratively meet our goals.

If I had to do a similar project again, I would not change much if I were working with the same people because we worked so well together. By having the timeline, it really pushed me not to procrastinate because I had to finish my part so my group members could finish theirs. I would like the project to not be as long because I felt as though it was longer that it needed to be, but I am only in 812 during this session and I do not have a teaching job. I felt that Part A and Part B and all the work leading up to the final presentation was very spread out and then the presentation creation was not as long. Aside from that, I do not have any complaints about the project. We were able to learn about a great resource, WatchKnowLearn, that is in an area of Educational Technology that interests us. It was a great project!


Here is the link to our presentation, using adobe presenter: Group 4 Project